I've never done a full review of a book before, and after writing this I'll still be able to say the same. Nevertheless, this 'response'—as I shall prefer to call it—is perhaps the most detailed analysis I've given of a book so far.
The Thesis
In very simple terms, the thesis of Gandy and Freke is that the origins of Christianity are better explained as adaptations of pagan 'mystery cults', most notably that of Osiris-Dionysus, than as the supposition of an early first century apocalyptic Jewish preacher named Jesus who was believed to be the Messiah by his followers and was subsequently (along with other Messiah hopefuls) executed at the hands of the Roman authorities ruling Judea at the time.
To support this claim, the authors draw to the light various similarities between these pagan mystery cults and Christian beliefs, and point to specific aspects of the theology behind our earliest written sources on Christian traditions: the theology of Paul. As part of this argument, Freke and Gandy attempt to argue that Gnosticism is the earliest, and original, Christianity:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
The traditional version of history bequeathed to us by the authorities of the Roman Church is that Christianity developed from the teachings of a Jewish Messiah and that Gnosticism was a later deviation. What would happen, we wondered, if the picture were reversed and Gnosticism viewed as the authentic Christianity, just as the Gnostics themselves claimed? Could it be that orthodox Christianity was a later deviation from Gnosticism and that Gnosticism was a synthesis of Judaism and the Pagan Mystery religion? This was the beginning of the Jesus Mysteries Thesis. (pp. 8–9) |
On Paul they have this to say:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Paul's Jesus is the mystical dying and resurrecting godman of the Gnostics, not the historical figure of the Literalists. ... The genuine Paul preaches the Gnostic doctrine of Illusionism, claiming that Jesus came not as a person but in the "likeness" of human flesh. (pp. 163–164) |
They conclude:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
As we reviewed the evidence, it seemed to us that the traditional "history" of Christianity was nothing less than the greatest cover-up of all time. Christianity's original Gnostic doctrines and its true origins in the Pagan Mysteries had been ruthlessly suppressed by the mass destruction of the evidence and the creation of a false history to suit the political purpose of the Roman Church.
...
Christianity did not arrive as a unique divine intervention. It evolved from the past, like everything else. There are no sudden breaks in history, only a continuum of change. The ancient Pagan Mysteries did not die. They transformed into something new—into Christianity. The spirituality of the West has been shaped by these two great traditions. The time has come to rediscover their common ground and claim all of our rich heritage. (pp. 249, 255) |
The argument, then, put forth by Freke and Gandy is that Christianity started as an early, Gnostic, adaptation of the pagan mystery cults, with a mythical godman at its center. This godman was later 'historicized' in the gospels and claimed to have been an actual living person. The view of the godman, Jesus, as an actual person won out over the view of the mythical godman, and the mythical elements of Christianity's origins were eradicated as part of a great coverup by the Roman Church.
If you find this ridiculous, you're not alone. But I don't think the authors would fault you for your hesitation to accept their claims; to help with this, they provide a few hundred pages of evidence, some of which we now move to examine.
The Evidence
To go through all of the evidence offered by Freke and Gandy would be quite an undertaking, not only because of how much there is, but because of the varied sources from which they've pulled their evidence. On top of this, my response here cannot be concerned with the various aspects of pagan mystery cults with which I am unfamiliar. My chief concerns rest in the claims made regarding the beliefs of early Christians, and the authors' apparent ignorance of biblical criticism and history. Suffice to say, when someone presents strings of information, some of which you can check and some of which you cannot, it is unlikely that you will trust the information you cannot check if the information that you
can check turns out to be lacking.
Pagan Traditions:
While I'll be avoiding particular examinations of the aspects of the pagan mystery cults, I should say a little something regarding the authors' pick-'n'-choose methodology for finding similarities between the pagan cults and Christianity. As the authors themselves point out early on:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Although no single Pagan myth completely parallels the story of Jesus, the mythic motifs that make up the story of the Jewish godman had already existed for centuries in the various stories told of Osiris-Dionysus and his greatest prophets (p. 28) |
In other words, we should not expect to see continuous parallels between the beliefs of the pagan cults and the beliefs of early Christians, because such continuous parallels do not exist. The parallels only become apparent, so it would seem, upon cherry-picking through the stories of the pagan cults. But, you might ask, isn't it possible to find parallels between any stories when one is willing to cut, rearrange, and generalize parts of the stories at random?
I would answer that by saying that it is not only possible, but exceedingly easy. And this becomes one of my primary objections to the arguments lodged by Freke and Gandy: their willingness to pluck out and recombine elements of the various pagan and Christian traditions makes their alleged similarities weightless as evidence for anything.
After all, let's suppose that such a pattern were an accurate portrayal of the nature of the Christian belief origins—that these beliefs really did come from the 'founders' of Christianity plucking various aspects of pagan myth to be utilized in their own cults—, a process such as this is extremely active; this is not the passive evolution of one belief system into another that may be seen with the development of pagan cultic traditions over time. No; instead, such borrowing involves a conscious effort on the part of the borrower, and such an effort should be recognizable in the history of the Christian tradition.
It is my firm stance that Freke and Gandy failed to present the evidence required to support such an active process. Granted, I am not at all in denial of the fact that Christianity has made extensive use of pagan symbolism and beliefs in its development. But in order to back the notion that such usage can explain even the founding of the movement itself, there will be more required than a long list of carefully extracted similarities.
Flavors of Jesus:
One area of problems, which crops up frequently, it would seem, in most ahistoricist literature, is the confounding of the various 'flavors' of Jesus into a single entity. What I mean by 'flavors' can best be demonstrated with an explanation of what those flavors are:
- Historical Jesus: The historical Jesus is the Jesus as recreated by historians through textual analysis of the gospels, the letters of Paul, and studies of first century Palestinian history. This Jesus has several key characteristics, namely that he was a Jew, was believed to be the Messiah, and was executed by the Romans.
- Traditional Jesus: The traditional Jesus is the character which can best be reconstructed as the original or earliest traditions regarding Jesus. Because this Jesus is the Jesus of tradition (and not just the Jesus of history), he has various properties which would not be historically possible to ascribe an individual, primarily that he was resurrected and seen alive by his followers after his death at the hands of the Romans.
- Textual (or Gospel) Jesus: This is the Jesus that appears in the various texts regarding him; thus for this Jesus there is a Jesus of Mark, Jesus of Luke, Jesus of Paul, etc. Each of these writers presents a unique portrait of Jesus.
- Harmony Jesus: This Jesus can best be described as the Jesus that results when the gospel (and other doctrinal) Jesuses are combined into a single character. Because the gospel Jesuses and other doctrinal Jesuses can often be contradictory, variation exists for the harmony Jesus depending on who has done the combining—what they've included from where and left out from where else.
Jesuses (1) and (2) are separate from each other in that the latter could theoretically exist without the former. However, (3) and (4) are intimately tied to (2), which may or may not be based on (1). In the
Jesus Mysteries, Freke and Gandy regularly appear to blur the lines between these various flavors of Jesus. This has the unfortunate side effect of invalidating many of their arguments as equivocations, since, for example, their arguments against the existence of the traditional Jesus may not have bearing on the historical Jesus. This brings us into our next point.
Christian Traditions:
On more than one occasion, our authors present information regarding Christian traditions for which they give no reference. Often these references can be divined; for example, they frequently combine traditions from the various gospels into one tradition when it suits their theory, despite the fact that such a combination can say nothing about the early state of the Christian movement (flavors (1) and (2)) since there is no evidence that the separate traditions (flavor (3)) later regarded as compatible were regarded as such in the days of the early movement, i.e., the authors fail to present evidence that the combined (f4) tradition is the tradition held by the various early Christians (f2).
Here are a couple of examples of this error:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Jesus is born to Mary in a cave and resurrects from a cave before three Marys. (p. 59) |
In none of the canonical gospels is Jesus resurrected 'before' anyone: his resurrection takes place out of sight with no witnesses. In all of the gospels, we are told that there are
two Marys (one in John) who go to the tomb and discover it empty. Thus, what we can actually say about the traditional Jesus regarding his resurrection is very little; if we take the gospels as evidence of that tradition, then we have an unwitnessed resurrection and an empty tomb discovered by two Marys (again, only one in John). So where did our authors draw their claims from that the traditional Jesus was resurrected 'before three Marys'? Was this an actual tradition held by early Christians? With nothing but our Bibles and
The Jesus Mysteries to guide us, we are left to conclude that no such tradition existed in early Christianity. If only we had a reference, we might be more convinced otherwise.
Another Mary tale:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Like her divine son, Jesus' mother Mary is also said to have ascended bodily into heaven and is honored as the "Mother of God." (p. 57) |
Of course there is no such mention of Mary ascending in any canonical literature. According to a Wikipedia article on the matter, the belief of Mary's ascension can only be traced back to around the 4th century:
Wikipedia on the Ascension of Mary:
Although the Assumption (Latin: assūmptiō, "taken up") was only relatively recently defined as infallible dogma by the Catholic Church, and in spite of a statement by Saint Epiphanius of Salamis in ad 377 that no one knew whether Mary had died or not, apocryphal accounts of the assumption of Mary into heaven have circulated since at least the 4th century. |
If we cannot find mention of the ascending Mary in even the early Christian tradition, then it is difficult to see how a 4th century addition to the traditions could have any relevance to an historical or traditional Jesus, who would have been a 1st century character. So, as before, we are all ready and willing to accept these points, if only they could be referenced in some manner relevant to the issue of an historical Jesus. In other words, these statements
may reflect actual beliefs of the early Christian communities, but without any citations, one is left completely unsure as to whether they do or do not, and thus unsure as to whether these arguments represent equivocation fallacies or not. Failure to provide the evidence that their subjects actually held the beliefs they say they held is a serious error, and it leaves a gaping hole in
The Jesus Mysteries argument.
Textual Inaccuracies:
Even worse than the unsatisfying lack of references for certain claims are the often blatant textual inaccuracies. Without being too horribly judging of their character, let me say that I was regularly left wondering if our authors had actually ever read any of the texts about which they were writing and making claims. I have selected a few particular passages related to Paul to start our examination, since the authors seem to rely heavily on analyses of his work. Here is the first passage:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Paul gives his ethical teachings on his own authority, without mentioning Jesus. (p. 152) |
This claim is flat-out false. In at least one instance Paul claims one of his teachings to come from the authority of Jesus (Lord):
1 Corinthians 7:10 (NRSV):
To the married I give this command—not I but the Lord—that the wife should not separate from her husband |
Note the part which I have emphasized. It appears then that Paul does, on occasion, draw some 'authority' from Jesus. Another one:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
In fact, Paul does not link Jesus with any historical time and place, including the recent past. (p. 151) |
Let's ignore the fact that this is a faulty counter-argument—since we would not expect Paul to repeat things to his congregations that he had already told them in person and which they had no trouble understanding—, and go straight to the textual evidence. Primarily we will see that Paul gives sound circumstantial indications to Jesus being a recent historical figure. In 1 Corinthians we read:
1 Corinthians 15:3–6 (NRSV):
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. |
For Jesus to have appeared three days after dying to people who were then still alive, he could be regarded (in Paul's mind) as nothing other than a recent historical figure whose death, and resurrection could not have taken place more than 50 years prior and whose life must have preceded this by approximately no more than that same amount, 50 years. This easily establishes Paul's Jesus as a recent historical figure. And on to another:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
According to St. Paul, there are three symbolic actions in a baptism of total immersion. Entering the water signifies death, immersion beneath it means burial, and emergence from it resurrection. (p. 36) |
Freke and Gandy cite
Romans 6 in support of this claim. But what does this chapter in Romans
really tell us about Paul's theology? Does it support, especially, the notion that emergence from the water signifies resurrection? Let's turn to the relevant portions of Romans:
Romans 6:1–11 (NRSV):
What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. |
In Paul's theology, are we really resurrected upon emergence from the baptismal waters? If we read the emphasized portions closely, we see that Paul speaks of a future resurrection, a hoped-for resurrection, one that has not yet been actualized. If the resurrection has yet to be actualized, how is it possible that the actualized emergence from the water can represent resurrection? Reading the passage in its entirety, of course, we realize that Paul does not attempt any breakdown of the significance surrounding baptism; the baptism is, in whole, a symbol of the death of our old life to sin.
But this should be regarded as nothing new, for the unique way in which Paul speaks of resurrection has been recognized by Biblical scholars and used to distinguish genuine Pauline theology from the non-genuine—Paul's letters from pseudepigraphic letters. Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman points out this distinction in a discussion on Colossians:
Ehrman in The New Testament (2004):
If Paul did write Colossians, then his views about the time and significance of the resurrection of Christians changed, for here believers are said already to "have been raised with Christ" (3:1). Recall that 1 Corinthians was written in large measure against those who believed that Christians had already come to enjoy the blessings of the resurrected existence (see 1 Corinthians 15). The contrast in verb tenses of Rom 6:4 and Col 2:12 (see italics) is also telling.
Rom 6:4 |
Col 2:12 |
| For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ... But if we have died in Christ, we believe that we will also be raised with him. | When you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. |
The question many interpreters have raised over the years is: which is it? Have Christians already been raised or not? (p. 379) |
It would then appear that the only text that can support Freke and Gandy's rendition of Pauline theology is a text that is debated to be non-Pauline (White 2004). Next, let us examine one of the claims Freke and Gandy make regarding the gospel of Mark:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Indeed, Mark portrays even Jesus' closest disciples as failing to recognize him as the Messiah until after his death. (p. 199) |
Unfortunately, this claim, as the others made by the authors, doesn't stand up to scrutiny, for in Mark 8 Peter acknowledges Jesus as 'the Christ' (= 'the Messiah', NRSV):
Mark 8:27–30 (NRSV):
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, 'Who do people say that I am?' And they answered him, 'John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.' He asked them, 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered him, 'You are the Messiah.' And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. |
This, of course, takes place well before Jesus' death. As matter of fact, there isn't even mention in Mark of what the disciples thought of Jesus after his death; where Freke and Gandy, then, get their information regarding the gospel of Mark is unknown, but they certainly don't get that information from the gospel itself.
The last factual error to mention in this section pertains as much to poor scholarship as it does to poor readings of the text. In a review of the Biblical texts, Freke and Gandy date the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles to be separated in time by 15–87 years; they furthermore show no apparent awareness of the scholarship indicating that these are actually two volumes of the same work (see White 2004, Ehrman 2004, and Gabel, et al. 2006). In part this scholarly consensus is based on "linguistic and stylistic similarities, thematic continuities, and even parallel episodes or doublets occurring in the Gospel [of Luke] and Acts" (White 2004, 248–250); but an even greater part is based on an actual reading of the opening passages of each work, which dedicate them to the same author, establishing in Acts the clear presence of a 'first book'. Compare them yourself:
Luke 1:1–4 (NRSV):
Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. | Acts 1:1–2 (NRSV):
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. |
|
So, are these one work? Or, are they two separate works separated in time by up to 87 years?
Logical Errors:
There are several areas in which the authors' evidence is solid but still does not support the conclusions they would like to draw from it. Let's look at one regarding Paul and his relationship to the Jerusalem church:
in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
In fact, quite the opposite. Paul's relationship with the Cephas of his letters would certainly not suggest that Cephas was the right-hand man of a historical Messiah. Paul is extremely hostile to Cephas and opposes him with strong language:
When Cephas came to Antioch I challenged him face to face, because he was acting inexcusably.
(p. 153) |
The Biblical reference here is
Galatians 2:11. Indeed, a full reading of Galatians is certainly enough to convince us that Paul was in a battle of theologies with the Jerusalem church, most especially over the issue of circumcision. Was the Cephas mentioned here the same Cephas as the one in the gospels? It's most honest to say that we don't know; and Paul's mention of a Peter
and Cephas (both mean 'rock' in Greek and Aramaic respectively) doesn't help to clarify matters. But this doesn't concern us here; what is important now is to determine whether or not Paul's treatment of Cephas is really evidence that this Cephas could not possibly be the Cephas believed to have been one of Jesus' closest disciples.
2
I don't think that we can use this 'challenge' as evidence that the Cephas mentioned was not one of Jesus' closest disciples; this is not to say that I think the Cephas mentioned here to necessarily have been anyone who even met Jesus, just that use of this passage does not refute the possibility that the Cephas here was one of Jesus' closest disciples. I say this because it is rather apparent, to anyone who has read through Paul's work, that Paul's theology was rather Gentile in nature—one might even say 'non-Jewish' (e.g.
1 Thess). If there was an historical Jesus with a close disciple named Cephas, then this disciple would have been very Jewish (Jesus' disciples, afterall, believed him to be the
Jewish Messiah).
This difference in theology could easily create a clash, then, between Paul and one of Jesus' close disciples; in fact, we should almost expect such a clash to exist. Thus, the existence of such a clash cannot be evidence that the characters described are not who they are regularly assumed to be, since if they were, then the clash would still be an expected occurrence. At one point in
The Jesus Mysteries, Freke and Gandy propose that the creation of an historical Jesus by the gospel writers (using the 'mystical Jesus' of Paul) was spurred by the chaos and destruction of the first Jewish revolt:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
It was at some point after these disastrous events that the Jesus myth was first put into a historical context by the Gospel of Mark. This suggests that it was this crisis that forced the creators of the Jesus Mysteries to transform their myth of the dying and resurrecting godman into pseudo-history. In the face of complete national catastrophe Jews needed more than Paul's mystical Christ. They needed a Messiah who had actually come to save them as promised. (p. 201) |
Let's ignore that, as presented, this argument involves a
post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy and focus on the final sentence of this paragraph, which proposes that Jesus was 'historicized' in order to serve as a Messiah who had actually come to save the Jewish people as promised. The overwhelming problem with this supposition is, of course, the simple fact that, as recorded in all gospel accounts, Jesus never does any messianic saving—he never saves the people as the promised Messiah. But this shouldn't surprise us; in Christian theology, the salvation brought by Jesus is not physical or political—it's spiritual. And herein lies the problem with our authors' line of reasoning: If the salvation isn't physical, then what would be the need to 'historicize' the savior? It was already part of the theology that he had spiritually saved his followers, and the stories of a physical Jesus tell of no other acts of salvation (aside from some miracles). How would making the stories up serve any purpose in solidifying a theology that wasn't—so our authors claim—dependent on an actual historical figure? To claim that the gospel writers invented an historical Jesus out of necessity doesn't seem substantiated by the evidence (and the authors' own admissions) that such necessity never existed.
At one point, Freke and Gandy provide us with a classic rendition of the argument from silence. Like all arguments from silence, however, theirs is just as flawed. Here is their rendition of the argument:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
We began our quest for the historical Jesus with the Romans. Jesus is said to have been crucified by the Romans and they were renowned for keeping careful records of all their activities, especially their legal proceedings, so we felt we could be optimistic that they would mention such a celebrated case as that of Jesus. Unfortunately, however, there is no record of Jesus being tried by Pontius Pilate or executed. (p. 133) |
From here the authors proceed with a list of historians writing during or around the time Jesus would have lived—they give lists of both Roman and Jewish writers, though they discuss them separately. Of course, there are no records of Jesus being executed by the Romans; and so the authors take this silence as indicating the extreme unlikelihood of the existence of an historical Jesus:
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Like countless scholars who have made this quest before us, we have found that looking for a historical Jesus is futile. It is astonishing that we have no substantial evidence for the historical existence of a man who is said to have been the one and only incarnation of God throughout all of history.
...
The lack of any evidence for a historical Jesus finally made us completely abandon the idea that the true biography of Jesus had been distorted and overlaid with Pagan mythology to create the gospel stories. (pp. 157, 158) |
But do these silences really add up to proof against the existence of an historical Jesus? There are, in fact, several problems with the arguments laid out here. First, we would not expect non-Christian writers at the time to think of Jesus as the 'one and only incarnation of God', even if they knew of his existence; in addition, we would not expect the execution of Jesus to be 'a celebrated case'. So even given the presence of historians during the time of Jesus, we have no reason to expect any of them to write about him.
Second, the missing records of execution cannot be evidence of anything in the case of an historical Jesus for the simple fact that
all execution records from the time are missing, if, indeed, they ever existed at all. This logical flaw can easily be demonstrated by laying out the relevant scenarios relating to possible records of executions.
- If we possessed all records of Roman executions from about the first half of the first century in Palestine, then:
If there was an historical Jesus (who by definition was executed), we will have a record of it.
We don't have a record of it.
There was no historical Jesus.
or...
If there was an historical Jesus (who by definition was executed), we will have a record of it.
We do have a record of it.
Nothing can be said about the historical Jesus on the basis of execution records (unless we knew all such records to be genuine).
- If we possessed no records of Roman executions from about the first half of the first century in Palestine, then:
If there was an historical Jesus (who by definition was executed), we won't have a record of it.
We don't have a record of it.
Nothing can be said about the historical Jesus on the basis of execution records.
- If we possessed some records of Roman executions from about the first half of the first century in Palestine, then:
If there was an historical Jesus (who by definition was executed), we might or might not have a record of it.
We don't have a record of it.
Nothing can be said about the historical Jesus on the basis of execution records.
or...
If there was an historical Jesus (who by definition was executed), we might or might not have a record of it.
We do have a record of it.
Nothing can be said about the historical Jesus on the basis of execution records.
Our situation is almost certainly that of scenario #2. Thus, the absence of an official execution record cannot be used to disprove the existence of an historical Jesus. So long as we reside in scenario #2 or #3 (which are the only reasonable scenarios in which to reside), then such an argument must by definition be illogical. To argue that we are in scenario #1 is unreasonable. I don't see that point being argued here, though. In either event, there is no reason to accept the lack of an execution record for Jesus as evidence against the existence of an historical Jesus.
When we combine the fact that an actual historical Jesus would not be spectacular enough to warrant much mention with the fact that any possible mention has certainly been lost from the passage of time, we are left with absolutely no reason to believe these facts to be evidence against the existence of an historical Jesus. Yet, in a hurried attempt to rush to their thesis, Freke and Gandy have failed to account for these errors in their reasoning.
Due Credit:
There are more criticisms that could be lodged against the arguments in
The Jesus Mysteries, but to add some balance to this response, I'd like to discuss some of the instances in which I think the authors actually do a rather fine job of arguing their points. One of the better examples involves their argument for Paul being a Gnostic. In short, the Gnostics were Christians who believed that the salvation Jesus brought wasn't so much in his death and resurrection, but through the secret knowledge (= 'gnosis', Gk.) he delivered to his chosen ones. This knowledge allows those who use it to escape the lower realm of Earth, freeing the 'spark' within them to ascend to the higher heavens and the one true God. (see the Wikipedia article on
Gnosticism for more specifics). Let's look at some of their points:
3
Freke & Gandy in The Jesus Mysteries (1999):
Paul's letters are full of such distinctively Gnostic doctrines. How many modern Christians have wondered what Paul's famous claim to have ascended as far as the third heaven [2 Cor 12:2–4] could possibly mean? This would not be puzzling for a Gnostic or initiate of the Pagan Mysteries, for both would have been taught that there are seven heavens linked to the seven heavenly bodies—the five visible planets and the moon and sun. (p. 164) |
Many varieties of Gnosticism do, indeed, involve the doctrine of multiple heavens, though this is also to be found in Judaism. This, along with the other points raised by the authors regarding Paul and Gnosticism, makes for a rather intriguing argument. Despite the strong points introduced by the authors here, their argument is still shaky; for example, where they would otherwise criticize the use of epistles not agreeably Pauline in authorship, they cite 'Paul' several times in this section from letters not widely accepted as authentically his (e.g., Ephesians). The authors further fail to make their case in solid terms. After reviewing the evidence that they present in the section on Paul and Gnosticism, I think it would be more appropriate not to conclude that Paul was an all-out Gnostic, but that Paul showed signs of the early theology that would develop into Gnosticism—that he held to some beliefs that would later become identified as Gnostic. Thus, it is probably more accurate to describe Paul as semi-proto-Gnostic, reserving the full label for later groups of Christianity that more completely fit the bill of Gnosticism.
Summary & Conclusion
The theory proposed by
The Jesus Mysteries is by no means new, and wasn't new in the day of the authors either. Freke and Gandy draw heavily on previous theories meant to link Jesus to mystical/mythical 'godmen', and appear indebted to them for large parts of their thesis. Despite the tradition that they carry with them, our authors fail in many instances to adequately demonstrate their competence in the subject matters they discuss. They make repeated blunders in their reading and understanding of the biblical texts they cite and appear genuinely ignorant of some of the mainstream scholarship that does not back up their claims.
So, while they present an enticing and important argument, their points seem often drowned out by the white noise of inaccuracy that washes through the book. This makes it almost impossible to take any of their claims seriously, and this
seriously undermines the strength of their argument, which comes off as pseudo-science rather than serious, well-researched scholarship. It is not difficult to understand why many prominent scholars had little good to say about their work; the following are summaries of other critical reactions to
The Jesus Mysteries:
Wikipedia on The Jesus Mysteries:
Chris Forbes, an ancient historian and senior lecturer at Macquarie University has criticised the work noting that Freke and Gandy are "not real scholars, they are popularisers." He notes that their arguments about Jesus are "grossly misconceived, and their attempt to draw links between Jesus and various pagan god-men is completely muddled. It looks impressive because of the sheer mass of the material, but when you break it down and look at it point by point, it really comes to pieces."
...
Bart Ehrman, in an interview with the Fortean Times, was similarly asked for his views on the work of Freke and Gandy. He responded by saying, "This is an old argument, even though it shows up every 10 years or so. This current craze that Christianity was a mystery religion like these other mystery religions-the people who are saying this are almost always people who know nothing about the mystery religions; they've read a few popular books, but they're not scholars of mystery religions. The reality is, we know very little about mystery religions-the whole point of mystery religions is that they're secret! So I think it's crazy to build on ignorance in order to make a claim like this. |
For further reading on the subjects covered in this post, you are encouraged to check out the resources below:
- Wikipedia articles...
- Books...
- Freke, T. & P. Gandy (1999) The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?. New York: Harmony Books.
- Ehrman, B. (2004) The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP.
- Gabel, J., C. Wheeler, A. York, & D. Citino (2006) The Bible as Literature: An Introduction, 5th ed. New York: Oxford UP.
- White, L. (2004) From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
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1 Freke & Gandy (1999).
2 I think it should be noted here that it is our authors' claim (along with much church tradition) that Peter was a close disciple of Jesus. Such a relationship is not borne out by a close reading of the gospels, in which Peter is regularly portrayed as one of the lesser disciples during Jesus' lifetime. It is only in the book of Acts that we see Peter mentioned as somewhat important, and the events reported here all take place after Jesus' death. That is to say, there is nothing in the New Testament accounts of the life of Jesus and his apostles that that would lead us to believe that Peter is Jesus' right-hand man; the statement in
Matthew 16:18 seems to stem from the later tradition developed around Peter's importance in establishing the church after Jesus' death, and so cannot be regarded as representing a true aspect of the Jesus-Peter relationship, especially considering all the evidence to the contrary suggesting that this relationship was, how to put it, rather rocky.
3 A point of clarification: In the actual text, Paul doesn't claim that he himself had been 'caught up' to the third heaven, but rather that it happened to someone he knew.
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Freke, T. & P. Gandy. (1999)
The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Jesus a Pagan God?. New York: Harmony Books.
Ehrman, B. (2004)
The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford UP.
Gabel, J., C. Wheeler, A. York, & D. Citino (2006)
The Bible as Literature: An Introduction, 5th ed. New York: Oxford UP.
White, L. (2004)
From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
